The court in a final ruling "refrained from issuing any sentence" against Rashed, which amounted to the jail term being annulled. He was expected to be freed later the same day, his brother Tareq al-Rashed told AFP.

However, the court asked him to "maintain good conduct" for three years.

Rashed, a professor of psychology, was convicted of violating Kuwait's press laws in a May 1998 newspaper article in which he wrote that the justice department was so bureaucratic that it deserved to belong to former occupier Iraq.

A criminal court issued its three-month prison sentence in Rashed's absence earlier this year. Rashed gave himself up on November 13 and was jailed.

Rashed, who runs a private clinic for Islamic counseling, is a former head of the Islam Presentation Committee which in the past decade has helped more than 17,000 foreigners living in Kuwait to convert to Islam.

A university professor, Ahmad Baghdadi, was jailed in Kuwait for 13 days last year after he was convicted of blasphemy against Islam. He was sentenced to a month in jail but was pardoned by the emir, Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah – KUWAIT CITY (AFP)